Just a wee quick update about my trip tp the Whitsundays this week..
SO i left Cairns late on Monday night where it had pretty much rained for 2 weeks..most of the time. I totally thought heading down the coast it would clear up but no actually, it was pretty much just as bad all through the night and when i arrived in Airlie Beach.
There wasn't much time to hang around as i was going straight onto my boat trip at 3pm so i had to sort through my stuff (they don't let you take backpacks on the boats!), buy some alcohol and snacks then walk along to the pier.
By this time i wasn't that up for going because the weather was so bad but thought it would probably clear up over the next couple of days..i couldn't have been more wrong!After we had a briefing about the trip and they took us over to the boat which was quite an old one called Venus built in the 1940's, i quite liked it cos it had more character than the other modern catamarans in the port!
There was about 22 of us altogether, good number i thought as we all pretty much interacted and there was no breaking off into groups..well to a certain extent as the Scottish, Irish and English were the alcoholics of the group of course ;) and we pretty much just got drunk that afternoon and into the evening when we were taken to a resort on Hook Island to sleep over. I'm quite ashamed to admit i was in bed by 8.30pm that night haha but also glad i wasn't sleeping on the boat as alot of other tours do.
It was a bright and early start on Wednesday and we were picked up by the boat at 6.30am (!!) and after some brekkie they took us to a little bay for some snorkelling. It was still totally wet at this point so we made the most of it and just got in the water since it was wet anyway hah..but i never lasted too long cos i got cold pretty fast and the visibility wasn't great unfortunately :( i ended up back on the boat before everyone to dry off and have a wee nap.
The next stop was Whitehaven Beach which is where the sand is so so white and they have the swirls with the blue sea..looks amazing in the pictures! It wasn't quite at it's best with the grey sky but amazingly still looked beautiful despite the rain (you can see that from my photographs). We had a float around the beach for around 2 hours then it was time to get back on the boat for another evening of drinking while we sailed back to Hook Island! Most people probably won't have heard of it unless they've backpacked in Oz but all everyone drinks is GOON..which is really cheap boxed wine..made of God knows what which tastes really minging as i tried it for the first time. Luckily i was on the cider actually but everyone who was drinking the goon was well gone after it, memory loss is obviously a main side effect haha! Once we got back to the island we had dinner and played some drinking games which was a lot of fun..we really did make the most of the bad weather and i think it was the group of people who made it bearable really!
Once again we were up bright and early at 6am..some people feeling a bit worse for wear ;) and we were planning to do some more snorkelling before the 3 hour sail back to the mainland. It was absolutely chucking it down again and i was down to my last dry piece of clothing because it had been impossible to dry anything and the hostel had no tumble drier! By the time we reached the bay for snorkelling, no one was up for moving off the boat but we eventually got on our wetsuits and just went for it..and i was glad i bothered as there was a lot more to see this time..some beautiful fish but no sharks..
The funniest part of the whole trip was when we were sailing back to Airlie Beach on the mainland..the sun came out, only 3 days too late haha!
Today i've been mainly hanging around as my bus isn't til midnight and i needed to check out at 9.30am..literally feel homeless as i've been sleeping on a bench at the water and now just sitting here with my laptop and book. Very boring!
Next stop tomorrow morning is Agnes Water town of 1770 for some surfing action!!
